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Courtesy of WNEP-TV
Police say Hughestown Officer Robert F. Evans Jr. sold oxycodone, Percocet and Vicodin out of his police cruiser.

When federal agents confronted Hughestown police officer Robert F. Evans Jr. on Thursday about dealing powerful painkillers while on duty and in full uniform, he told them he wanted to cooperate.

Evans admitted obtaining oxycodone pills from a friend and through a prescription, selling the pills over the past year, and driving a client to Wilkes-Barre in a Hughestown police cruiser so the client could buy illegal drugs, according to an affidavit released Friday by the FBI after agents charged the officer.

The FBI said Evans surrendered to arrest "without incident." He was released under federal supervision following an arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick in Wilkes-Barre on a single count of distributing oxycodone, according to the Luzerne County District Attorney's office, which aided the investigation. If convicted, Evans could face at least 10 years in prison.

Evans did not return telephone messages and did not respond to a business card a reporter left with his father at his Moosic home.

Evans provided prescription drugs to client-turned-FBI informant John Nat and Dupont police Officer Kenneth Shotwell, whom he knew had a prescription drug addiction, since August 2012, according to the affidavit. Nat told agents the sales started at least a year earlier.

Nat told investigators he bought oxycodone, an opioid prescribed for moderate to severe pain and the similar drugs Percocet and Vicodin, as well as other drugs, from Evans and his associates. Nat said he bought five to 12 pills a week from Evans over the last two years, spending $30 to $60 for each pill, according to the affidavit.

Nat said he would meet Evans at a car wash in Duryea or at the Hughestown police station to complete the transactions, the affidavit said. Nat said Evans made most of the deals while he on duty.

Federal agents recorded calls of transactions between Evans and Nat last week and moved in on Monday, setting up a buy between Nat and Evans, the affidavit said.

The agents said they watched as Evans left with the $100 Nat gave him for the pills and then as he returned hours later at an arranged meeting spot, the affidavit said. The agents confronted Evans, who admitted selling oxycodone to Nat over the past year and that he was on duty during at least two or three sales, the affidavit said. Evans told the agents he obtained the pills through a prescription and from a childhood friend, Sid Lewis, who the agents said corroborated that story.

Prosecutors in Lackawanna County previously charged Evans with attempting to obtain prescription drugs illegally. Evans' charges were expunged after he completed an Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program, which is reserved for first-time offenders or defendants who have had clean criminal records for at least 10 years before their arrest.

Council president Wayne Quick, reached at his home Friday evening, said he had just seen a telephone news report about Evans' arrest.

Evans' custody status had been unclear for hours after his arraignment Friday. Paperwork from the proceeding was never sent to the court clerk's office in Scranton.

Mehalchick, reached by telephone in her chambers, would not disclose Evans' status.

"I'm not commenting and I'm not answering any questions about what happened in my courtroom," Mehalchick said, hours after the hearing, which was presumably open to the public.

The FBI referred inquiries about Evans' status to the U.S. Attorney's Office, where a spokeswoman had no comment.

bwellock@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2051

msisak@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2023

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